ancient DNA (Other Keyword)
226-250 (324 Records)
Information regarding the prehistoric human migration into Southernmost Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego provides a baseline against which it is possible to compare interpretations regarding the colonization of the Americas, including its timing and rates of human dispersion. The earliest archaeological evidence in Fuego- Patagonia dates to the Late Pleistocene (c. 10.500 BP). By the Middle Holocene archaeological record (c. 8000-4000 BP) shows marked differences between the technological,...
A multi-proxy investigation into Southern Caribbean sea turtle populations to assess long-term impacts of human activities for baseline reconstructions. (2025)
This is an abstract from the "Global Perspectives on Biomolecular Approaches to Human-Animal Interactions Past and Present" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Caribbean sea turtle histories are deeply intertwined with past human activities. It has long been acknowledged that to fully support sea turtle recovery we must account for the activities acting on populations prior to modern baselines. As sea turtles are long-lived, species level data...
A Multidisciplinary Approach to Inca Resettlement in the Andes (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Thinking Big in the Andes: Papers in Honor of Charles Stanish" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. We employ a novel multidisciplinary approach to test the Inca (ca. 1400–1532 CE) policy of forced resettlement (mitma) in the Chincha Valley, Peru. This political strategy significantly transformed the Andean demographic landscape, but it has only been proposed based on intriguing yet ambiguous written sources and...
“Mutton” and the Paleogenomics of Coast Salish Woolly Dogs (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Dogs in the Archaeological Record" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Prior to European colonization, Indigenous Coast Salish peoples in the Pacific Northwest traditionally raised a long-haired domestic dog breed to harvest its hair for weaving. The decline of dog-hair weaving has been attributed to the introduction of machine-made blankets by British and American trading companies in the early nineteenth century, and...
New Approaches to Study Health and Disease in the Pre-Colonial circum-Caribbean (2017)
The most frequent pathologies found throughout the circum-Caribbean before arrival of the Europeans are dental and periodontal diseases. To date, ancient oral health has been studied using a variety of techniques, and recently ancient DNA (aDNA) analysis of dental calculus (calcified plaque) has shown great promise in revealing not only (oral) health and disease, but also diet and the composition of the oral microbiome over archaeological timescales. In this paper, we present ancient metagenomic...
New genetic perspectives on early maize cultivation in the American Southwest (2015)
Following the initial domestication of maize (Zea mays ssp. mays) from a teosinte grass in Mexico, human populations dispersed the cultivar through trade and migration. Despite a long history of archaeology in the American Southwest, many questions about maize remain, including how the crop was dispersed northward from Mexico and how maize was acclimated to new environments. These unresolved questions can be explored in new ways, thanks to next-generation DNA sequencing technology and targeted...
New Phylogenetic Information from Ancient DNA for Central Panamá (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. New interpretations of Precolumbian Panamanian archaeological sequences and regions are provided. Results from ancient DNA (aDNA) analyses of remains from the site of Panamá Viejo, Panamá, are compared with a multiple burial found in the vicinity of La Pintada in Coclé, Panamá. The Panamá Viejo materials are classified as haplogroup A2 and include...
Next-generation sequencing unravels the relationship of Paleoeskimo and Thule dogs from the North American Arctic (2015)
The peopling of the North American Arctic, occurred in two waves. First the Paleoeskimo people migrated from Siberia roughly 4,000 BP, followed by the Thule people ca. 1000 BP. The Thule people are known for their innovation and rapid colonization of the North American Arctic, compared to small population sizes of the Paleoeskimo. A distinguishing characteristic of Thule culture relative to previous Arctic cultures was increased use of dogs, particularly for dogsled traction. Use of dogs by the...
Nondestructive DNA Sampling Method of Human Teeth (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. DNA acquisition from skeletal remains reveals a wealth of information that observational analysis alone does not offer. Researchers can glean an individual’s ancestry, lineage, and biological sex and review genetic diversity. However, most current methods require some form of destruction to extract genetic material, which can dissuade entities (museum...
The North Pacific Coastal Migration Hypothesis: New Insights from the Northwest Coast (2025)
This is an abstract from the "Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Late Pleistocene Archaeology of the Northern Pacific Rim" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A transitory island archipelago along the southern coast of Beringia existed ca. 30,000-8,000 BP and may have facilitated human dispersals to the Americas from NE Asia. However, opportunities for human dispersals southward from the Gulf of Alaska along the Northwest Coast (NWC) of North America...
The Not Very Patrilocal European Neolithic (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Two decades of strontium isotope and aDNA research on Central European Neolithic cemetery populations have consistently interpreted patrilocality, which is now a foregone conclusion. This paper questions those interpretations from a social anthropological perspective. Models are presented for interpreting strontium isotope ratios and aDNA that consider the...
Obsidian source analysis and properties testing from artifacts at El Mirador (2025)
This is an abstract from the "From Origins to Collapses: New Insights in the Cultural and Natural Processes of the Mirador-Calakmul Karst Basin" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. pXRF elemental source analysis was conducted on a sample of 990 obsidian artifacts curated in the Foundation for Anthropological Research and Environmental Studies collections in Guatemala. The majority of the artifacts analyzed were from El Mirador, with additional...
Of Rabbits and Men: Using Ancient DNA and GMM to Investigate Rabbit Domestication (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Questioning the Fundamentals of Plant and Animal Domestication" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Rabbits are one of the most recently domesticated animals, and yet, over thousands of years, they have lived in a diverse range of relationships with people. This close interaction is recorded in archaeological and historical records and reflected today in the diversity of breeds worldwide. Whilst extensive research has been...
Old enough?: Determining the beginning age of bifacial point technology in central Japan (2025)
This is an abstract from the "Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Late Pleistocene Archaeology of the Northern Pacific Rim" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The bifacial stemmed point (BSP) in Japan is considered to be synchronous with or older than the relevant examples across the northern Pacific Rim, which includes the Japanese archipelago in the west and western North America in the east. Therefore, bifacial point technology in Japan has recently...
Once a Mentor Always a Mentor: Two Decades of Research, Pedagogy and Life Lessons from Dr. Fred Valdez, Jr. (2025)
This is an abstract from the "Sessions in Honor of Dr. Fred Valdez Jr. and His Contributions to Archaeology, Part 2" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper reflects on research, pedagogy, and life lessons from Dr. Fred Valdez, Jr. His lifelong commitment to archaeology, teaching, mentorship, and scholarship will be emphasized, but are too numerous to name in this context. His many contributions to ancient Maya commoner theory and social...
The ones who stayed behind? Genome-wide affinities of Okunev remains from Bronze Age South Siberia and the enduring dialogue of ancient DNA and physical anthropology. (2017)
Genome-wide ancient DNA data from Upper Paleolithic Siberians and deep time series in Europe challenge many traditional models of relationships between Native Americans, West Eurasians, and East Asians — commonplace units in physical anthropology — by recasting them as fusions of prehistoric ancestry streams that may unexpectedly cross-cut or fracture these categories. We evaluate new and published genome-wide data from remains attributed to Okunev — an archaeological culture of the Middle...
Optimization of a Minimally Invasive DNA Extraction Protocol for Teeth (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Ancient DNA extraction protocols are inherently destructive and, therefore, are often controversial and problematic. For some communities, destructive processing of human remains could be perceived as a desecration of ancestors. For laboratory scientists, the destruction of samples limits the ability to replicate results. Harney et al. (2021) present a...
Oral Metagenomes from Native American Ancestors Reveal Distinct Microbial Lineages in the Precontact Era (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Disruption of the microbial community in the oral cavity, by diet, host genetics, or environmental factors, can lead to dysbiosis, promoting preferential growth of pathogenic microorganisms leading to a diseased state. The calcified matrix of dental calculus is a good source for ancient biomolecules belonging to bacterial species, allowing researchers to...
Oral Microbiome Shifts Associated with the Expansion of the Roman Empire along the Lower Danube (2025)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Under Emperor Trajan, the Roman Empire encompassed 5 million square kilometers across Europe, Asia, and Africa. The empire’s vast territory was interconnected by an extensive network of roads and military conquests, yet it was also characterized by a rich diversity of cultures, languages, and populations. Despite centuries of study, many questions remain...
Paleoenvironmental Reconstruction at Poverty Point Using Ancient Sedimentary DNA: Potential and Challenges (2024)
This is an abstract from the "*SE Not Your Father’s Poverty Point: Rewriting Old Narratives through New Research" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Poverty Point is a wonder of engineering, with over two square kilometers of earthworks constructed over several hundred years around 3500 BP. While the timing of the deposit’s construction has been a topic of research for nearly 100 years, there has been relatively little investigation into the resources...
Paleoenvironments, First pottery, and the Late Upper Paleolithic from Hokkaido Island, Japan (2025)
This is an abstract from the "Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Late Pleistocene Archaeology of the Northern Pacific Rim" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. While Late Pleistocene lithic technology patterns around ~16,000 cal BP show similarities between Northeast Asia and North America, early regional ceramic technology does not appear as early in North America. To reconstruct the technology and investigate the discrepancy in the timing of...
Paleogenetic and Paleopathological Studies at Pachacamac: Methodological Issues and Preliminary Results (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Ancient DNA (aDNA) analysis can be a useful tool for sex determination, general mitochondrial lineage (haplogroup), and disease diagnosis in human remains. However, non-endogenous DNA contamination of archaeological material is a recurrent problematic, since excavation, handling, and storage usually don’t fit with the precautions recommended for aDNA...
Paleogenetic history, diet, and health in early Chinchorro and later agricultural populations from the coast of northern Chile (2025)
This is an abstract from the "2025 Fryxell Award Symposium: Papers in Honor of David J. Meltzer Part II" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This study aims to understand the genetic history of early archaic Chinchorro and later agricultural populations from northern Chile and to assess the impact of agriculture on the oral microbiome. We collected teeth (n=125) and dental calculus (n=70) samples from coastal and inland sites spanning 7,000-500 years...
A Paleogenetic Perspective on the Early Population History of the High Altitude Andes (2016)
The peopling of the high altitude Andes marks an important episode in South American population history, eventually leading to the formation of the most complex societies of the late pre-Columbian period, namely Wari, Tiwanaku, and Inca. Little is known about how population dynamic processes and genetic adaptation to physical stressors like hypoxia shaped the genetic diversity of the Andean highland populations over the ~10,000 years of human presence in high altitude leading to the emergence of...
A Paleogenomic Approach toward Reconstructing Bison Evolutionary History (2023)
This is an abstract from the "A Further Discussion on the Role of Archaeology in Resource and Public Land Management" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. At the end of the nineteenth century, overexploitation of bison reduced the population from an estimated 30 million to approximately 1,000 individuals. Despite the magnitude of this bottleneck, we do not understand how bison were affected at the genetic level, nor do we know past bison population...